Link!

Collin has been absolutely obsessed with Zelda the past couple of months. I don't mind admitting that I know how he feels, it's an awesome game. For any that were living under a rock especially in the 80's and 90's, Zelda is a Nintendo video game about a little boy named Link who looks like an elf and his mission is (you guessed it!) to save the princess, Zelda. Collin has been playing on our old Nintendo 64 and after he warmed up with Mario for a few weeks he has moved on to my favorite game of all time. Zelda is intense and takes hours and hours to complete even if you know what you're doing, but the awesome part for Collin is that you can just sort of wander around and explore places, which he does endlessly. He is still a bit scared to confront many of the 'bad guys' but there are so many places to go and things to do in the game so he can easily avoid them.

He has been saying for awhile that he wants to be Link. I found a bow and arrow at Wal-Mart a couple weeks ago for him and that was exciting, but he keeps asking for more Link stuff. Link has a LOT of stuff. He wants a hook-shot, sling-shot, magic, a sword, shield, a shirt that lets you breathe under water,  boots that fly... the list just goes on and on. He finally said that he wanted a Link costume so I started looking for one. But since Zelda is SO ten years ago, costumes are hard to find. The best I could find was someone on eBay willing to make custom order costumes for about $30. Then the craziness began and I thought "Hey, I could do that." You all should already know, I do NOT sew. Maybe a button here or there, or if I'm feeling really lucky I may attempt to save some poor stuffed animal that has suffered a horrible accident. I did do a couple of blankets around the time Owen was born, but no one wears a blanket unless the are playing Superman and need a cape. Mostly we take advantage of my wonderful mother-in-law who can completely put Martha Stewart to shame. She can make anything and it's always amazing.

After wandering the craft section of the previously mentioned Wal-Mart and feeling like an idiot, I found some material and thread. (Thanks to Sally for recommending the felt!) When I got home I felt even dumber for ever expecting to create something wearable from these raw materials. I found some instructions online that basically involved tracing one of Collin's t-shirts and cutting it out. I had this thing all pinned up with safety pins, because I'm not cool enough to have those straight pins that people have when they actually know how to sew. When Collin first saw it in it's rough first draft form he made a face and said he didn't want to be Link anymore. We had to have a Mommy/Collin conference at that point and I explained that I had already put some time and money into this thing and if he was going to be rude about it we could just throw it in the trash. He totally called my bluff and agreed that indeed the thing I was calling his costume should be thrown into the trash as soon as possible. He explained his argument as well as a 4-year-old could and said that he didn't want to wear Link's shirt, but instead he just wanted to actually BE Link. He wanted all the accessories and tools that Link uses, but he was not comfortable wearing elf clothes. I explained that if he wasn't dressed like our brave hero then no one was going to know he was Link and would just think he was Collin with a sword for some reason. This seemed to work for him and he agreed to wait and see how the costume turned out. I was still curious myself as to how it would turn out at this point.

Well here is the final product and I think it worked out way better than I could have hoped for. Collin changed his mind and I think he is happy it didn't go into the trash. He wears it all the time now.

I was particularly proud of the collar and the sleeves, since I've never done either before. :) I still have to make some boots... he wants me to make 3 pairs of boots like Link has: Hover boots (lets you float in the air), Iron boots (helps you sink and walk under water) and then the regular boots. He also really wants some gauntlets, little fingerless gloves that go up to the forearm, and he needs the golden gauntlets and not the silver ones because he needs the extra strength to pick up huge rocks! If nothing else I think playing this game has helped him work on his memory skills. You have to play certain songs to go different places and use certain weapons at the right time etc. He has also discovered that if you keep practicing you will improve on whatever you are trying to do.

I found a sword and shield for him at Target:

Some folks have asked what kind of costume Owen is going to wear and my answer to that is: are you kidding me? The kid doesn't even like clothes!

If you were wondering, and I know you are, I have intentionally left out the "H" word from this story up until this point, but since it is October and I am one of about 5 people on the planet that does not get excited about the last day of this month it will come back to haunt me I'm sure. I will give you another post soon about my quirks about that day.